Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work from miniature painters from around the world. They are of every colour, gender, age and nationality, but all these people have at least two things in common: they love miniatures and they have all taken the Challenge.
This site features the current year's event along with archives of past Challenges.
Enjoy your visit and please come back soon.

Sections

Monday, 2 February 2015

Another fortnight, another gallery chock-full of wonderful thematic submission from our talented Challengers. This week the theme was was 'Myth' and we were treated to subjects ranging from Minotaurs to Mumaks, Cthonians to Cave Trolls - a veritable smorgasbord of creatures and personalities of mythic legend.

The voting statistics speak volumes in of themselves. It was another incredibly tight race with only 7 points separating the 10th position from the 2nd (the reason why we have seven runners up this round) AND we had a tie for four of those positions. Amazing work people!

Anyway, not to tarry, I'll move on to announcing the runners up.

SanderS 'The Reason Why'

PaulS 'Werewolf'

AlanD 'Fate is Everything'

RichardC 'Jason Battles the Skeletons'

AaronH 'Mumak'

Millsy 'Pegasus'

MartinN 'Merlin'

In Third Place (and 25 bonus points) we have ByronM's wonderful 'Steampunk Little Meremaid'.

Second Place was a tie between BrendonW's 'Valkyrie and Norn' and StefanK's 'Thor, The Mighty God of Thunder'. Great work guys, you'll be both awarded another 50 points to add to your tally.

And finally, in First Place for the second consecutive week we have MichaelA with his fabulous 'Jabberwokky'!

Congratulations Michael! On top of your well-earned 75 bonus points you'll be receiving a gift certificate from the ever-awesome Kawe over at Westfalia Miniatures. Again, thanks for giving us a glimpse of the dreaded 'frumius Bandersnatch'!

This is the first 8-figure unit of warriors for my Welsh warband. They are all javelin armed to sow confusion amongst the enemy. Vikings don't like being pelted with pointy sticks!

These chaps have been painted with muted colours and have plain shields and cloaks. none of this fancy tartan and shield patterns for them! Those who feel the need have daubed the chi-rho symbol on their shields prior to battle, but otherwise it's no fuss for these hill-tribesmen!

I spent a fair bit of time cursing over my pin-vice while drilling through the fists of several of these figures to give them the second javelin. A lot of effort and very fiddly, but I reckon it was worth the effort!

The second 8-figure unit will be armed with pikes and axes for close quarter combat. The axemen will whale away at the enemy shieldwall, while the pikemen will poke their long pointy sticks over the top at the enemy's faces. Lastly will be the levy archers to round off a really tricky warband.From Curt:Great work Ben! Even though it was a paint to drill the addition of the second javelin really adds a lot to this unit. I particularly like the grizzled bald guy - he looks badass (if cigars were available in Wales in the Dark Ages he'd be chomping on one).

Well having tried the "Songs of Drums and Shakos" I personally did not feel they fitted with the ACW so having had a rummage through the lead pile and raked out my figures from my stalled "Donnybrook" project as I can see the War of Spanish Succession working so much better than American Civil War for the "Songs of..." rules.

The rummage turned up mostly cavalry. From which I have made 2 units. 1 French and this one English. 9 figures in each unit including a gentleman type leader a trumpet and a standard. I already had some British flags of the period so one standard was a gift with no mucking about.

For the French standard I went for a fairly generic design from the period rather than try to copy an existing and well known historical regiment. After all if you copy a regiment it means you can only use them in the battles that they fought in or accept that you have left historical accuracy and started on the path of pure fantasy (that should raise some eyebrows and bring much jeering from certain purists).

The figures are "Black Hat" bought some 2 years ago so they jumped the painting queue considerably. They were all part of a British army box set but painting the uniforms Grey with red trim has allowed me to do 1/2 as French as the uniforms were VERY similar in design if not colour!

There were only 4 foot troops left to paint the rest being finished last year. So I thought to finish them off. Again a French and British standard bearer., a British Drummer and a French Sargent. The standards were not present but a pin mage a good substitute at this scale with a flag of the period popped on top.

A total of 18 Cavalry and 4 on foot. And 4 simple flags if you want to push the boat out.As I have no more painting for other people this week I will either start some 20mm Arab/Israeli stuff or some US FOW desined for eBay. Cheers Guys

From Curt:

Beautiful work Clint (and a very nice points bomb I must add)! I really like the bright green facings against the red uniforms on the cavalry - very smart. I also like the look of round bases for the cavalry. I think I first saw this with LotR stuff and really liked the aesthetic. It think it works especially well with skirmish figures as they don't need to have that boot-to-boot look of formed units.

Question: What is it about 'Songs of Drums and Shakos' that doesn't fit the American Civil War with you? Again, a very enjoyable diversion. Thanks!

OK so here we we have the last of the Wargames Factory Viking Heuscarls I picked up. I now have enough guys for the starting army for Saxons in Dux Britainiurm. As has been the case all along the shields are hand painted and the designs come out of my head not from any historic images (though I have looked at a lot of other people's designs). Flags are from Ray's blog and while not really historical I like seeing banners here and there in the battle line.

My plan is to use these for both "historical" games and for Gods and Mortals.

The Shields are what make these figures striking so I really tried to highlight these in the pictures

I did try to repeat colors and designs to some extent but not to the extent of looking like there is a uniform assigned to a unit.

This group is the one exception I tried and the raven design borrowed from Ray's flag and really liked how it looks.

I did it 4 times twice in white, once in yellow and once in red. The wyrm design didn't come out to my satisfactions.

Finally we have two "legends" for Gods and Mortals. My legends are inspired by Guy Kay's "Last light of the sun." I am doing an Erling (Viking) force so my legends are the major characters form that group in the book. Red Thorkell an old raider who though his raiding days were over. Once a oar companion of the Great "Volgan"now he is an old man selling the one thing he has left his sword arm. In the book Thorkell borrows "Cyngael"(Welsh) or "Anglcyn"(Saxon) shields on two occasions as both of these are worshipers of the sun god "Jad" decided to have his shield display a sun disk.

Ivar Ragnersson grand son of the Great Volgan is described in the book as ugly and deformed... I couldn't quite pull off deformed but I did give his skin a grayish pallor and went with a washed out white/gray hair. Ivar is in modern terms a Sociopath, weaker than is typical among Erlings he uses a bow and poisoned arrows with great skill but will run form a close fight.

All together we have 20 Warriors all 28mm for 100 points and as group shot was requested.

From Curt:Great work Adam! I'm not a huge fan of Wargames Factory figures but you've done a very nice job on this fierce mob. Question: Are the guys on the hex-bases your leaders? I'm adding a few more points for the hand-painted shields and banners. Well done!

14 more recruits for the army this week. More Plastic 28mm Perry Miniatures.

I cut down some pikes and glued on halberd and Bill options. I also swapped two thrusting bill hooks with Pikes.

The pikes only come with a marching option which is actually probably very practical for when you are pushing them around a games table.

Still plenty more miniatures to complete for this project. Happy painting everyone. CheersFrom Curt:More Wars of the Roses goodness. Marvelous stuff Brendon. Your weapon swaps turned out very nicely. It seems you have a very good tempo going on with these figures. I know for myself that I'm very much looking forward to trying out some of these soon.

So for this week I will present you absolutely nothing! As predicted early in January this last week and the next few are going to be hectic, so with Mr Mills reaching 2500 last Thursday in whirl of paint and pain I decided I did not need to rush to complete the latest batch which would have taken me to 2500 point as well - so I will keep the powder dry on them..

Millsy has been sent a copy of "Sands of the Sudan" as a reward for getting to our target first - and being a decent chap has also sourced me some items for the Sudan collection - top man Millsy. Having had to endure MC Hammer and Nik Kershaw I think it only right for payback - I have just the tune for you. Step away from your paint desk - its "Unchained Melody"

So for now. I will leave you with

From Curt:

Good one Dave! Take your time but not too much as we're keenly awaiting your next batch of joy.

The British Legion otherwise known as Tarleton's Legion or Tarleton's
Raiders is an American Loyalist formation that is a combined force of
both infantry, cavalry and light artillery. The Legion fought in numerous engagements, anti- guerilla missions and punishment raids mainly in the Southern theatre.

Banastre Tarleton is probably one of the most controversial figures in
the war with many believing him to be a murderous thug while others
think he is a victim of propaganda. A lot of this stems from what is reported to have happened at the Battle of Waxhaws.
This engagement resulted in the catch phrase Tarleton's Quarter. My
personal opinion is that it was a civil war of sorts especially in the south with
a lot of bad blood so I think both were pretty ruthless in dealing with
each other and atrocities were likely committed on both sides, but I
think Waxhaws either through fact of events or propaganda ramped things
up a few notches and both sides took revenge killings on each other when
the mood and opportunity struck. Whatever your opinion on Banastre Tarleton from murderous thug to
brilliant cavalry officer you have to admit the man could design an
excellent hat seen on the figures called....yep you guessed it a Tarleton.

When painting the unit I pretty much used Don Troiani's painting and
description of the regiment down to the horses being a mixed lot of what
they could get their hands on. Equipment I kept as uniformed as
possible as I feel cavalry were better equipped and found it easier to
maintain it. I enjoyed painting their simple, but rather elegant
uniform and of course the Tarleton hat's which are my favourites of the
war. As you may have noticed I couldn't resist playing up the bad guy
image and mounted the commander(perhaps Tarelton?) on a black
stallion.:-)

At 28mm I think this gives me 60pts.Miniature Company-Perry Miniatures From Curt:

Stunning work Christopher! I love the paintwork on the horses and their uniforms are excellent as well, especially the blending on their buff trousers. Lovely.